It was such a quick relief to see him more like himself, that she had almost a sensation of pleasure, and she smiled faintly while she tried to say something.
‘No—please—I’m so sorry——’
She could find no connected sentence. He rose and began to walk up and down before her, making half a dozen steps each way, a shadowy figure in black, passing and repassing before her.
‘I believe that I have made everything clear in my letters,’ he said, and then he glanced at her from time to time without pausing in his walk while he talked. ‘I shall not repeat anything I have written, but there are one or two other matters of which I must speak to you before we begin life again together, Maria. They need not be mentioned more than once either. It is better to be done with everything which may be in the least painful to you as soon as possible.’
In spite of the formal manner, there were kind inflections in his tone. It seemed marvellous that he should have recovered himself so soon, and it was only possible because such exhibitions of weakness were not really natural to him. Maria had felt relieved as soon as he had begun to talk quietly, and when he left his seat, her physical repugnance to him began to subside within its old limits. But at the same time she felt a vague fear that he was going to speak of Leone.
‘You have shown remarkable tact, my dear,’ he went on, ‘and you will have no difficulty in making your friends understand that our long separation has been principally due to my mother’s condition, and that since she is gone’—his voice sank a little—‘we have resumed our married life. This will be easy, no doubt. May I ask, without indiscretion, who your most intimate friends are?’
‘Giuliana Parenzo is my only intimate friend,’ Maria answered at once.
‘I am glad of that,’ said Montalto, approving. ‘She is a thoroughly nice woman in all ways, and everybody respects her. Are there any others whom you see often?’
‘I have dined a good many times with the Campodonico and the Saracinesca and the Boccapaduli—sometimes with the Trasmondo. I have never gone to balls. On the whole, I have tried to be on friendly terms with most of the people who have children of Leone’s age.’
She had boldly brought forward the question which she thought he meant to reach, and she waited for his reply. But he would not take it up.